Okay, so as those of you who watch "Just Shoot Me" and "ER" already know, NBC finally aired a commercial for the new iMac last night-- twice. (According to MacMinute, it aired at 21:56 ET and again at 22:25 ET-- man, those guys are thorough.) And yes, we did see both airings ourselves, but many thanks anyway to faithful viewer Plow King and the 4.6 million others who wrote in to tell us about it. In fact, since faithful viewer The Jackalope claims to have spotted the ad during "Family Guy" as well, we've probably got it on TiVo, too, ready for repeat viewings-- which is nice, because we definitely liked it. When we saw it, the first thought to enter our minds was, "Wow, that's a great ad." The second was, "good gravy, we'll actually have something to write about tomorrow."

For those of you who may have missed it, for some reason Apple hasn't posted a QuickTime version yet; faithful viewer resteves notes that MacRumors has a viewable copy, but in case you're addicted to text, here's a brief description: Some Guy is walking down the street and passes an iMac in a store window, whose screen swivels to follow Guy's motion. Guy, noticing this, stops, and sees the iMac "looking" at him. Slightly unnerved but intrigued, he rolls his head. The iMac rolls its, er, screen. Guy turns to the right; the iMac pivots accordingly. Guy does a little jumpy thing from side to side; the iMac's screen does the same. Finally, Guy leans in and sticks out his tongue-- and the iMac sticks out its drive tray. Guy backs away smiling and notices Some Woman staring at him. He looks suitably embarrassed. The iMac straightens up, the Apple logo appears on its screen, Jeff Goldblum intones "wait 'til you meet the new iMac," the slogan "Think different" does not appear, and blammo-- Apple's out whatever thirty seconds of prime time ad space costs these days.

So why do we like this commercial so much? Simple-- it's cute, it's entertaining, and it makes maximum use of those precious thirty seconds to exploit the iMac's biggest drawing power: most people just find it really cool. It has star power. It has personality. Of course it's a stupendously powerful computer and packs a ridiculous number of features for its price, but trying to convey that in half a minute by rattling off specs would be pointless. The idea here is to get an image stuck in people's minds and get them curious. The only real way to appreciate the iMac to its fullest is to see one in person, and this commercial just may prompt people to go do that. Besides, the ad does demonstrate the iMac's most prominent and unique feature: a gorgeous LCD screen that pivots on a shiny metal arm. That's going to garner a lot more attention than a thirty-second explanation of how an 800 MHz G4 is "a lot faster than it sounds, really, we promise."

By the way, we note that less than six hours after we pointed out the lack of iMac TV commercials, Apple went ahead and broadcast one. Deciding whether that's a) just a coincidence, b) evidence that Apple does everything we say, or c) proof that Steve Jobs just likes to make us look like dorks is left as an exercise for the viewer.